DREAMLAND
Book One
By
Ron Piana and Randi Londer Gould
Published by
Ron Piana and Randi Londer Gould
Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright Notice
All copyrights are reserved by the Authors - Ron Piana and Randi Londer Gould - 2012.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
To Kristine “Kitty” Piana
RP
For my Benj
RLG
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night, wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
—T. E. Lawrence
Table of Contents
Section 1 - Chapters 1 - 5
Chapter 1
For the third day in a row—or maybe the fourth, he wasn’t sure—Buddy Graves’s wife, Dana, left for work without kissing him goodbye. Even when running late, Dana always blew an air kiss, flinging out her hand in a silly wave. But all the fighting about his job, their mortgage trap, and the crumbling neighborhood was coming between them. Now they were finding the smallest of ways to hurt each other, just to defend themselves against this thing they were losing control over.
It was a Monday morning in early June, only a few minutes after nine o’clock, and already, freakishly, blazing hot. Monday was caddy’s day at Woodcrest Country Club. The club closed for groundswork and the bosses let the caddies play a round. As a kid, Buddy looped Woodcrest; a year ago, after losing his career, he’d gone back. A caddy again, at thirty-two. He should have felt bad about it, but he didn’t. Next to Dana, golf was what he loved most in life. The course was the only place where he felt purely attached to the earth. Give every kid a golf club as soon as he can walk, Buddy always said, and this would be a better world. Or at least more polite.
This morning, when he slipped from bed, he’d lifted the sheet and stared at Dana in her sleep-mussed T-shirt and panties, her smooth flesh, inches away. Hers was a dense beauty, nothing frail. The only thing he’d known in this world that he wouldn’t redesign in any way was her body, her hidden parts, the childhood scars of a tree-climbing tomboy.
And after twelve years of marriage, one question still tantalized him: If he gently wedged a knee between her legs, ran his hand down the contour of her back, would she respond with that slight purr that meant yes? But this morning, watching her, he was moved by more than sex. For a crazy moment he felt that if he left the bed, he might never see her again. It will happen one day, he thought.
So he hadn’t gone to play golf this morning, and for that sacrifice he was left unkissed.
Shaving in the upstairs bathroom, Buddy was still thinking about Dana. Her scent of lavender, a neatly folded washcloth, vapor on the windows, an afterimage of her morning routine.
Then he nicked his chin good, a cut that ran in rivulets—the thin blood of a hard drinker. “Fuck me,” he said, slamming the razor down on the sink and grabbing a wad of toilet paper to stick on the wound. Dabbing his face in the mirror, Buddy scowled and picked up the razor, skirting the cut where the tissue waved, like a white flag of surrender, he thought angrily as he stroked with the blade.
He let out an explosive breath and felt a rushing sensation; a shape had materialized in the corner of the mirror. Jumping in his skin, Buddy made a loud choking noise as the razor clattered to the floor. Crouched on the top stair, so close he could touch her, was the seven-year-old black girl from next door. Their eyes met, she shrank away and blurted, “The bus for camp is gone an’ Momma left!”
Buddy’s face went hot; a tightness gripped his chest and the thought, heart attack, skittered across a synapse. He wore nothing but a pair of tight-fitting boxer jocks and those big eyes of hers looked right where they shouldn’t. Like a kid, he covered his crotch with one hand, feeling the awkward weight of his genitals. Ripping his beltless bathrobe off its hook with the other hand, Buddy shouted, “You can’t be here!”
Her tiny face crumpled, full of rolling tears and little-girl mouth bubbles. Her teeth looked too big for her mouth and her eyes flashed and flashed again.
“Please, you gotta go home,” he said in a panicked whisper.
She flattened against the wall. “Momma’s gone. The door’s locked!”
“Where’d she go? Can we call her?”
The child wagged her head like a bobble doll.
“Don’t cry, please. We’ll figure this out, but we have to go outside,” Buddy said, his voice strained and pleading.
Then she was on Buddy, clinging to his arm, an uncomfortable, moist, skin-to-skin sensation. “Mista,” she cried, a lost sound, barely audible.
“OK, OK, OK,” he said, coaxing her with baby steps down the staircase, fumbling with his free hand to keep the bathrobe closed.
Sunlight pooled at the bottom of the staircase. As he opened the front door, Buddy heard traffic and a lawnmower. The little girl was trembling, making tiny asthmatic coughing noises. “Easy. It’s OK,” he said in a dry croak.
They stepped out onto the porch; Buddy’s head swam in the heat. He bent at the waist, bringing his face close to hers. Wanting to calm her, he took hold of her sleeve, a crinkly yellow crepe material, and said softly, “This is a pretty blouse.”
Just then, a car whipped into the driveway next door. Tyrell Walker, the tall, muscular black guy who lived next door with the girl’s mother, stepped out of his maroon Honda Accord. He was wearing outsized curved sunglasses and clutching a cell phone.
Tyrell held the phone up at arms length, aiming it at Buddy and the girl, like a gunfighter. The faint mechanical sound of a shutter expanded in the air. He lowered his arm. “Dummy!” he snapped at the child. “Get over here.”
Buddy straightened up, squinting into the sun.
“What, didn’t you hear, girl?” Tyrell barked.
She tugged with all her weight, but for some reason Buddy held her until she screamed, “Lemme go!” His hand opened and she bolted across the yard, running from him. His legs trembled as he wrapped his bathrobe and called, “What’s up, huh? She was locked out.”
Tyrell held Buddy’s eyes for a moment, then he nodded slightly. As the girl reached him, he swatted at her backside. Propelled by his hand, she ran up to the front door, crying.
After a silence, Buddy said, “Thanks, man,” and instantly wondered to himself why he was thanking this guy. He had seen him dozens of times, coming and going at odd hours, but they’d never spoken. Just one of those deals struck in neighborhoods like this—living next to each other, but not really neighbors.
“She was locked out,” Buddy called again, throwing up his hands. After a beat, Tyrell nodded, another barely detectable twitch of the head. But it meant something and he wanted Buddy to know. So he did it again, with more emphasis.
They looked at each other. Buddy waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. Tyrell just slipped the phone into his pocket and turned slowly toward the house. Buddy felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle and rise.
Chapter 2
He stood in the glaring sun waiting for the black guy to come out and settle this thing. Pal, tell me what I did wrong, huh? Your girlfriend fucks up with her kid and you cop an attitude with me? Swearing to himself, Buddy replayed his favorite angry tirade in his head: This fucking neighborhood, these rude assholes. There’s no decency left.
Air, I need air, he thought to himself, fighting the feeling he was crammed into a suffocating box.
Absently stroking his face, Buddy looked across the street at the elderly black man mowing his lawn. This old dude saw everything go down, Buddy thought. He never misses a trick, slumped over that gassy mower he pushes around the yard. The old man, Eugene Freyerson, cut his lawn twice a week and constantly puttered around the house. But the place could never kick that rundown look of decay. When Freyerson glanced up, Buddy waved at him, stupidly, like all of a sudden they’re friends. Giving Buddy a weary look, the old man disappeared into his house, emerging a few minutes later with his dog. It was a scabby mutt with mismatched parts: a stumpy tail; one flopped ear, the other cocked; a thick chest; a skinny ass. Its hindquarters were paralyzed, and in a daily ritual, Freyerson gripped the dog’s back legs as though they were the handles of a wheelbarrow, stutter-stepping behind as the dog pissed on his shoes. What is it with those two? Buddy wondered. Why doesn’t the old man just put that dog out of its misery?
Shading his eyes, Buddy shifted his gaze next door. It finally sank in. The guy wasn’t coming out to talk over whatever it was that pissed him off. Buddy sighed, all at once worried. He had that same vague, near-breathless kind of worry he got after being with his first girl, wondering if he’d been safe enough, or if all his careless ways were about to catch up with him. That’s when window-shaking rap music throbbed from Tyrell’s house, and a hot flash of anger blew Buddy’s worry away. Who could listen to that crap? He stomped into his house, closing the door with force.
Flopping onto the couch, Buddy grabbed the remote and turned on the tube. An ESPN rerun of a John Deere Classic was playing. He watched, sound off, imagining the ping of a perfect stroke, the big ahs of the gallery, the soft pad of green fairways beneath the feet, the rich chucking sound of Callaway clubs. Ernie Els was leading by two strokes, but Tiger was on his ass, inside his head. Els had a tough second shot, a three wood off the sixteenth fairway. The wind kicked up, flapping his lime green twill slacks. Buddy actually felt the torque sensation in his swing. Nice arm stroke, free as a kid on a swing. Good distance, but the shot lofted a bit high in the wind, hooking just enough to land in the sand, tucked like a big plug of chaw under the bunker’s upper lip, a lousy-looking lie. It was all over his face: poor Ernie, he heard Tiger’s footsteps.
When Buddy was captain of his high school golf team he was treated like a guy with a future. Coach Thompson used to grab the back of Buddy’s neck, pull him close, and whisper, “Buddy, you’ve got something special, don’t let it slip away.” There was the golf scholarship to Adelphi. But he blew it off; Buddy wanted to see the world. He saw the world, alright. Eighteen months on a Merchant Marine ship, only to wind up nearly dying in a Guatemalan hospital with a raging infection and fever, his life ebbing away, all because of knife wounds he’d suffered while trying to break up a bar fight between two of his shipmates.
After the ship, there was a string of gigs: laborer, truck driver, short-order cook. Then, just for kicks, he interviewed for a proofreader’s job at a medical publishing company in Manhattan. He had no college degree, but Buddy connected with the editor, an old-school Irishman. In a few years, Buddy had worked his way up to a senior editor position. Life was sweet. Buddy loved saying he was an editor; it had class, weight. Shortly after marrying Dana, they bought their house. On spec. It was Buddy’s idea. Property values soared. Buddy and Dana were happy. Then the economy imploded. Just like that. Not in slow motion, where you could see it coming and brace for it. All at once America went broke. At least, that’s what it had felt like. Buddy’s job was eliminated. Somehow, eliminated is worse than being fired. There’s no way back.
He still didn’t have a degree. Dana had begged him to go back to school, but Buddy was too smart for that. “I’ve read more books than most college professors,” he’d bragged.
A year later, Buddy still couldn’t seem to catch his breath.
And right now he couldn’t shake the feeling that some final-straw, invisible line had been crossed this morning. On the surface, it was such an innocent thing. So why did he feel such dread blossoming in his chest? I was trying to help the kid, Buddy said to himself, hotly. What did that guy think, anyway?
He decided not to tell Dana. Keeping secrets from her was another sign that he was not in control of things the way he should be. But fessing up about this awkward incident would just spark another senseless fight. Better to let it blow over like some natural disturbance that runs its course, he thought.
Buddy was not used to being home during the day. He turned off the TV and got dressed. He needed to do something. He got in his car and drove to Town Hall, flipping on the radio. On NPR, some earnest-sounding academic was explaining why, even though the recession was over, the job numbers would remain troubling for quite a while. We’re running out of money, that’s why, Buddy thought as he drove past four closed retail stores on Main Street in Huntington. He nearly sideswiped a mini-van full of screaming kids as he whipped into the parking lot.
This wasn’t his first trip to Town Hall. He recognized the woman at the information desk beneath the small rotunda. She was heavy with a round face and short white hair like a man’s. She always seemed bored and a bit hostile. “Can I help you?” she asked, distractedly. Buddy explained that he wanted to see the head of code enforcement. She told him to have a seat. Twenty minutes later she announced, “Mr. Sammis will see you now.”
Buddy expected Sammis to be older. He was thirty, barely, with the compact, sturdy look of a terrier that put Buddy on edge. Small men, he always found, were forever overcompensating. Still, he put on his game face and smiled.
“Mr. Sammis, Buddy Graves.” On the other side of Sammis’s desk, Buddy took a seat in a cheaply upholstered chair, its nubby synthetic fabric stained and lumpy.
“So, Buddy, what exactly is the issue,” Sammis asked, still working on his computer.
Buddy waited. He wanted Sammis to stop typing and pull his stubborn, clouded gaze away from whatever was fascinating him so on that screen. Buddy wanted to know he had this jackoff’s full attention. Show some common courtesy, damn it. Some respect.
Finally, Sammis noticed the silence hanging in the air. He looked up expectantly, and faintly annoyed.
“It’s my neighbors on both sides. I filed a complaint about them three months ago. The yards are unkempt. The grass is this high,” Buddy said, his hand hovering, palm down, three feet above the ground.
“Have you spoken to your neighbors about it?” Sammis asked.
“It’s not just grass; the houses are falling apart.”
“But have you spoken to them?”
“Spoken to them? Didn’t you get my original complaint? Some Korean, some character named Cho in Queens bought the houses. The tenants don’t give a damn how they look.”
Sammis turned back to his computer. “How do you spell your last name?”
“It’s Graves. Grave with an S.”
“OK, this is an absentee landlord issue. Mr. Cho has been notified. His attorney is handling the complaint,” Sammis said with an air of satisfaction.
“And?”
“And he still has several months before a summons can be issued. That’s the way it works.”
“So, when does Cho have to cut the grass and fix the gutters and paint the siding and replace the missing pickets in the fence, and all the rest of the shit that’s falling apart?”
“It could drag on for a while. You know how it is when lawyers get involved.”
Buddy rose slowly, his hands shaking. “Look. Some geniuses on the town board, who I’m sure live in Huntington Bay, rezoned my neighborhood for absentee landlords like that prick Cho or Blow, or whatever his name is. He dumped a bunch of HUD people next to me and let the places go to shit. But I need to sell my house. And the realtor won’t even show it until those places look decent.”
Sammis stood abruptly, pulling himself to his full height, which was still a good four inches shorter than Buddy.
“You can’t go there, OK?” he said, raising his voice.
“Go where, exactly?”
“Where you’re going, about the tenants. OK?” he glared.
“Oh, I get it. You thought I might say something inappropriate about my nice neighbors.”
“I understand you’re frustrated…”
Buddy planted his knuckles on Sammis’s desk and leaned forward, his jaw clenching.
“You don’t understand just how frustrated I am, Mr. Sammis. Get it through your PC head. I’m the victim here, OK? Not them.”
*****
When he heard Dana pull into the driveway, Buddy poured two glasses of wine. He’d already had a few drinks, but he hoped she wouldn’t notice. Dana came in wearing her baggy green hospital scrubs and flip-flops.
“Hi, I made some grilled chicken and broccoli. You hungry?” he said, a bit too quickly.
“OK,” she said, peering closely at him. “You’ve been drinking. We had a deal about drinking before I got home, remember?”
“Christ, I had a drink, alright?”
Dana walked to the refrigerator, poured a glass of milk and gulped it down. She wiped the milk mustache off with her forearm and said, “Buddy, you never have just a drink. But, whatever. I had a bear of a day. I just wanna eat and jump in the bath.”
When they sat down at the kitchen table, Buddy chewed slowly and stared at something across the room as Dana talked about a new RN who didn’t look or smell clean. Dana—who maintained her maiden name, Burke, since she had started her career before they married—was a head nurse in a trauma unit at Long Island Jewish, and she always spoke her mind. “I told her straight up that she has a big-time hygiene issue, and she better take care of it. She called the union. Can you believe that? I wasted half an hour arguing with the moron rep over that crap.”
“Ever wonder why they call you Nurse Ratched?” Buddy teased, trying to jolly her out of her mood.
She shrugged and went on. “I got a call from my mom today. It’s my dad’s birthday this Saturday. She asked us to come over for dinner. Mom’s sort of making a big deal about it.” Dana paused a beat and said, “My brother’s coming up from Virginia, minus the wife and kids, thank God.” She paused again, putting her fork down slowly, waiting. “OK, Buddy, what’s going on?”
Buddy wiped his mouth on the napkin, shook his head. “Sorry. Was I drifting?”
“I said, what’s wrong?”
“You mean other than everything,” he said forcing a grin. “I had a row at Town Hall today about Mr. Cho.”
“Who the hell is Mr. Cho?”
“The nice Korean man in Queens who owns the houses all around us.”
Dana squinted hard at Buddy. “No, not that stuff. Something else is wrong. Christ, I tell you we have to go to my parents’ house for a meal and you don’t let out a groan? Have we entered some kind of weird parallel universe where my husband doesn’t despise family get togethers?”
“Yeah, maybe we have.”
“What happened today?”
Buddy closed his eyes for a moment. The morning replayed itself in a flash. For a second he wanted to say I’ve got something to tell you, but some rush of emotion stopped him. He pushed away from the table and let out a breath. “Nothing happened,” he said. “Nothing.”
Chapter 3
On Tuesday morning, running late, as usual, Bobbi Holmes swept into the Starbucks where she and Dana liked to meet early in the morning before Dana’s shift started and before Bobbi settled in with her laptop to rake muck in The Holmes Report. Through sheer doggedness, Bobbi had turned her blog into one of the most widely read—and feared—by people of influence in politics and business. For Bobbi, it was a kind of revenge. Her father, David Holmes, had been a respected journalist. But when he reported information given to him by a source in the district attorney’s office—deliberately misleading information that was backed up by the DA’s crony—it led to the death of an 18-year-old inner city kid. Nobody seemed to care about that kid except David Holmes, who ended his career a broken man.
Friends since high school, Dana and Bobbi tried to get together for a weekly chat. But it had been harder to find the time since Dana was made head nurse of the hospital’s twenty-six–bed trauma unit. Still, Dana looked forward to their morning coffee: she had always found Bobbi’s bisexual allure hard to resist. This morning when she spotted Bobbi rushing in, Dana grinned and tipped her head up so Bobbi could kiss her on the lips, their playful greeting. Even if she was having a bad week, Dana was always cheered by seeing her old friend, with her tattoos and body piercings, the de rigueur trappings of a cyber chick who rips the mask off hypocrites, frauds, and cheats.
“How’s that union thing going?” asked Bobbi.
Dana shrugged and said, “I worry about infection, not insulting a nurse who needs a bath.”
Bobbi smiled. “That’s what you told the union rep?”
“In so many words. I wasn’t polite.”
“Glad to see you haven’t lost your edge.”
“Yeah, caught it from my dad.”
“So, aside from that, you doing okay?”
“You know, nothing’s really changed,” said Dana.
Bobbi leaned closer. “It either gets better or it gets worse, it doesn’t usually stay the same.”
Dana looked out at the traffic. “Buddy and I are on such thin ice, we’re afraid to take a step in any direction. That’s the only way I can describe it.”
“It’s in Buddy’s court now,” Bobbi said. “He’s got to fight his way out of this.”
“He won’t.”
“You’ve got to talk to him, Dana.”
“Goddamn this. I’m trying to figure out life without Buddy and I’m having a tough time doing that.”
“Sorry. But if he died, you’d mourn for a while and go on with your life.”
“Maybe he thinks he’s ruined me for other men.”
“Nobody’s that ruined,” Bobbi laughed.
“The golf swing is prepared within the silence of the heart,” Dana said dreamily.
“What?”
Dana turned her head. “That’s how Buddy talks about golf. It’s his true love. You should see how his face changes when he has a club in his hand.”
“Well, I can’t say it’s bad to feel that way about something.”
“But that’s why he won’t move on. Bobbi, he’s not on the PGA tour, he’s a goddamn caddy and he’s OK with that. I hate it. I’d rather he sit at home and stare at the walls. There, I said it. I’m ashamed of him, OK? I can’t love a caddy.”
“But he’s still the guy you fell in love with and married.”
Dana shook her head. “Not exactly. That’s the problem. Losing his job changed him.”
“Maybe feeling he doesn’t have a way back to a career is what changed him.”
Dana sighed. “It’s just getting to be too much work, Bobbi.”
“The economy sucks. I feel for him.”
“It’s like he’s sick and he can’t—or won’t—get well,” Dana said.
“You still love him? That’s the important question.”
Dana bit the corner of her lower lip. “Yeah, I do. But I’m afraid that’ll change, too. It scares me.”
“What made him Mr. Right?”
“I went with a lotta guys before Buddy. He was the only one who surprised me. I never knew what was gonna happen next. He was always impulsive.”
“Sounds like you’re already talking about this relationship in the past tense.”
Dana shrugged, shook her head and pouted. “Maybe I’ll try girls.”
“You already did,” Bobbi laughed.
*****
Woodcrest Country Club, perched on the wind-blown lip of Long Island Sound, had the feel of a British links course. Once a haven for old-money WASPs, the club was invaded by hoards of arrivistes riding the Reagan wave, mostly Jewish hedge fund guys, real-estate developers, and retail kings—all brash, in-your-face money. Sol Abrams, who owned, among other enterprises, a mail-order company that supplied prescription drugs to every labor union in the tri-state area, was a living distillation of the club’s nouveau riche members. When he was hashing out the details of his daughter’s bat mitzvah, the caterer assured Sol it would be the best affair ever. To which Sol bellowed, “I don’t care from best. I want every fucking Jew who walks outta there to say, ‘That was the most expensive bat mitzvah I’ve ever been to!’”
The prevailing winds of the Sound were a key factor in the original design of the course, as holes that typically play downwind were longer but also open in front to allow the player to bounce the ball onto the green. The holes that usually ran into the wind were shorter with smaller targets. There were only two par fives, with each playing in opposite directions. But more than anything, Woodcrest was the most private of golf courses—a place to make deals, drink, entertain clients, talk shit about sports and money, and cavort with each other’s wives and mistresses.
Separated from the starting tee by a thicket of lush poplars and a stockade fence was the caddie yard, the spring-summer home to three distinct groups: the sharp-dressing, smooth-talking, self-possessed black men who barreled up I-95 from the South every summer in a three-car convoy, with their rumbling voices and knowing smiles; the members’ college-aged kids on summer vacation who surreptitiously studied these men for clues on how to live the art of cool; and finally, Buddy and a handful of older white guys who were a bit broken down, with weathered faces and wary eyes. A peeling painted sign in the yard remained, the remnant of a kinder, gentler club: No Profane Language. Clean Up Your Cigarette Butts. But it may as well have been torn down, so little heed did anyone pay it.
It was a hot and windless day, not a cloud in the sky. With no loops in the offing, the college boys split for the beach, leaving a few black caddies playing cards, smoking cigarettes, talking about pussy. Buddy arrived late. It was the slowest day of the week. The caddy master, Jock Macgregor, gave Buddy a look that didn’t go unnoticed by one of the black caddies, a guy called Lemon. Over his cards, Lemon called, “Yo, Buddy, Tuesday’s with Elaine.”
A half hour later, Buddy saw her slow-walking toward the first hole wearing yellow slacks, the same type she was wearing the first time he’d seen her, about twenty years ago. Elaine Weinberg was in her early fifties now. She said a few words to Macgregor who waved his hand. “C’mon Buddy, you’re up.” Macgregor, a white-haired Scot with a drinker’s rosy, blotchy face said, “The other half of Mrs. Weinberg’s twosome came down with something. Think you can handle a single?”
“For you, Jock, I’ll give it the big try.”
Buddy threw her golf bag over his shoulder, walked easily down the fringe of the fairway where Elaine teed up and addressed the ball. The first hole was a straightaway par four. The tee shot should favor the left side of the fairway; fade right and you’ve got double-trouble sand and long grass. She looked down the fairway, squinting into the sun, and remembered what Buddy had told her time and time again—in the address position, you should only be thinking about the next action: drawing the club smoothly away from the ball.
Buddy watched her swing, following through, finishing in a perfectly balanced position. Her right heel lifted off the ground. Her gold earrings glinted in the sun.
The ball bounced down the fairway, a hundred and eighty yards from the green, just left of the bunker.
Good girl, Buddy said to himself, walking down the course.
He handed Elaine a mid-fairway rescue club and stepped away. She was a slender woman with nice hips and short reddish hair pushed back behind her slightly large but still delicate ears. She had the shoulders of a young boy, a pretty, sun-freckled face, and small blue eyes that wrinkled at the corners when she smiled.
“I love these new Pings,” she said, measuring up her shot.
“Enough to take a stroke off your handicap?” Buddy asked.
“All I want out of golf anymore is to enjoy it, Buddy,” she said, exhaling softly with her backswing.
Before playing the back nine, Elaine went into the midway clubhouse to freshen up. Buddy was sitting under an oak tree overlooking the fairway when she walked over to him holding two bottles of cold beer. They clinked bottles. “I like a can of beer better,” she said. Her eyes, with their beach-glass blur, gave it away. She’d had a couple of her little friends, the mini bottles of Smirnoff she always carried in her bag. Buddy drained his beer and hoisted the bag. Ten is a tricky par three. The green sits too high to see the pin.
“The cup’s on the left of the green today, Mrs. Weinberg,” Buddy said, handing her a five iron. “It’s bone dry, so you’ll need plenty of loft.”
“Thanks Buddy. God it’s hot,” she said, brushing her hair back with her hand.
He walked toward the fairway.
She called, “I still can’t believe you’re back. And I’m Elaine, remember?”
Her cell phone rang. “Elaine Weinberg,” she answered.
Buddy smiled to himself. Hearing her pronounce her name “Weinboig” brought him back to being a fourteen-year-old caddy with the hots for her, then in her thirties, winking at him as she sneaked a quick slug from a mini. Those winks of hers, like airblown kisses, grew sexier, year by year.
Putting out on the eighteenth hole, Buddy said, “Elaine, don’t forget, putting is all right hand.”
“Sometimes I need to be reminded,” she answered coyly. Her clothes were damp with perspiration at the places where the garments hugged her body tightest.
“That’s what I’m here for, to remind you,” he said, playing along at their flirtatious game that had rekindled when Buddy came back to Woodcrest. They liked each other, in a companionable way. Up until now, it was all innocent, and Buddy wanted to keep it that way, even though he often pictured Elaine in bed, wondering what her body would be like, a softness different from Dana’s, what she’d say in his ear, how she would sound.
“You’re not going to run off again, are you?” she asked, reaching down to pull her ball from the cup.
Looking at her Buddy said, “No, I’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Good, because I’ve got something I want to talk...”
Just then, a car horn blared. Buddy and Elaine turned. Spraying gravel, the car pulled up by the cart path. The dark-tinted driver’s window rolled down, revealing a beefy red face with eyes that turned snakish. “Get in, now!”
The Mercedes CL-600 smelled of thirty-dollar Cohibas and Ralph Lauren cologne, scents that pinched Elaine’s nostrils. Her husband, Isidore Weinberg, whom everyone called Izzy, pulled away before her door closed. At sixty, with his thick-necked body and rough manner, Izzy was still the robust cattle baron from Modesto she’d met twenty-five years ago. Elaine could never get over the novelty of a Jewish cowboy. She fell hard for him, this bad boy, with his dark hair raked back, his love of booze and broads and Vegas, his ostrich leather cowboy boots, and that Broderick Crawford voice roughened by Scotch and tobacco.
Twisting around to look out the rear window, Elaine watched Buddy walking with her bag toward the clubhouse.
“I thought you were playing with Judy Fried. Lemme guess. She got ‘sick’ again, right?” said Izzy.
“Yeah, Judy’s delicate that way.”
“I’ll give you delicate!”
“Sure you will. Stop yelling, it makes my head hurt,” Elaine said, giving Buddy’s fading image one last glance.
“Did I not tell you to get another fucking caddy? Did I not?” Izzy barked.
Elaine closed her eyes and breathed in slowly. “He helps my game,” she said flatly.
Izzy mashed the gas, hurtling past startled grounds workers and down a long winding road that skirted the edge of the course. Coming to a meticulous, Tudor-style house he stopped and turned to Elaine.
“See that nice fucking house? Our pro lives there,” Izzy said, stabbing the air. “We pay that goy asshole Brad Mueller a hundred and fifty K. Plus the house. He can make your game better. And word has it he’s got a schlong that hangs halfway to his knees. Just like his old man Mike. You oughta remember that dick. You can have both of them. Just do not embarrass me with that motherfuckin’ caddy, that Buddy,” he spat.
Elaine turned her face to the window. “My God, you’re a pig.”
With thumb and forefinger, Izzy gently pinched the small wattle of flesh hanging from Elaine’s neck. “Yes, but you’re my darling little piglet. Now, get another fucking caddy, Mrs.Weinberg, or I’ll run his ass outta here.”
Chapter 4
Buddy was in the shower scrubbing down, his afternoon loop at Woodcrest cut short by a thunderstorm that swept off the Sound on wild threads of lightning. The storm sent his foursome off in a let’s-get-the-fuck-outta-here stampede. They were at the same hole where, six years earlier, Fred Baum and his caddy were torched by a bolt of lightning. “Fuck the storm, I’m workin’ an eagle,” were Baum’s last words as the rest of his party hightailed. It was a sweet three-footer he could make with his eyes closed. Baum’s caddy handed him his putter, then kafuckinboom! Fred Baum, wholesale furniture king of the East Coast, and his caddy, a black ladies’ man called Cool, were both blown out of their shoes.
Stepping out of the shower and toweling off, Buddy pulled on a pair of running shorts and started thinking about dinner. Padding to the kitchen, he peered into the fridge, making a mental inventory of the ingredients there. Dana liked a good meal after her 10-hour shift at the hospital. Like her father, she had a quicksilver metabolism; she could eat like a horse and never show it. He’d love two more pounds on her, one on each ass cheek.
Because of the heat, Buddy was thinking frittata and salad as the doorbell rang, twice in quick succession. He prayed it wasn’t the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Buddy could be polite to a fault, a weakness in himself he hated. He had let these sad-sack proselytizers, always a pathetically young plain-Jane among them, prattle on about how divine love meets every human need until—
Opening his front door, Buddy felt a hot rush on his neck. Two feet away was the black guy from next door. Buddy’s eyes swept him, taking in the Marine tat on his right bicep. The guy was built solid, with closely shaved hair and wide set eyes. They started hard at one another, each waiting for the other to speak.
“We gotta talk, man,” said Tyrell.
Feeling his heart suddenly bound up and hammer against his ribs, Buddy said, “Talk about what, exactly?”
Tyrell turned his head side to side, stretching his neck, like a buzzard huffing. “C’mon, you know about what. We got us a problem here, man. We gotta talk,” he said, motioning for Buddy to let him in.
“Whoa, wait a minute. What’s the problem?” Buddy said, anger rising in his voice. “Yesterday with the girl? She came to me because she was locked out. Now if anyone should—”
But Tyrell pushed past him, leaving Buddy standing at the door, open-mouthed.
“Get the fuck out of my house!” Buddy shouted, flinging the door open, motioning wildly.
Tyrell waited a beat and said, “You gotta chill. We got a bad situation here.”
“Situation? There is no situation. Get the fuck out!” Buddy felt breathless and cursed himself for trembling.
“My name’s Tyrell. What’s yours?”
Buddy pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, then lunged, grabbing Tyrell’s left arm. Tyrell spun loose, yelling, “Don’t fuckin’ touch me!” Buddy heard himself make a guttural noise in his throat as he launched himself at Tyrell again. But Tyrell was quicker, stepping back and ripping a piece of paper from his pocket. “You better cool your shit and look at this!” he said, widening his eyes.
Buddy’s hands shook as he took a deep gulp of air and stared at the paper. His face went slack and he shook his head as if trying to clear away the confusion. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t understand,” he repeated, looking now at Tyrell.
“What’s your name, man?” Tyrell said, a sly confidence in his voice.
“I’m going to call the cops if you don’t get the fuck out of my house now.”
Tyrell shrugged as he stepped into the dining room and sat down. “Go ahead, call the police,” he said, carefully flattening the piece of paper on the table. “Go ahead man, I’ll be here waitin’ for ‘em.”
Buddy studied Tyrell for a moment. He blinked hard, and said, “What do you want?”
“I said I wanna know your name. When I do business with a man, I wanna know his name.”
“Business? We don’t have any business,” Buddy said, looking away, then back to Tyrell in a quick jerk.
“What’s your mothafuckin’ name? You gotta know that much.”
The question hung in the air. It seemed to confuse Buddy. After a moment, he said, “Buddy. People call me Buddy.”
“That your real name? Or a nickname?”
“My real name is Harmon,” Buddy said, sitting down, staring at Tyrell. “What the fuck do you want?” The anger had drained from his face. Suddenly he looked very tired.
“I don’t like Harmon. Sounds like a fuckin’ redneck. Buddy’s better. Buddy’s cool,” Tyrell said with a soft snort. Then his face turned serious and he slid the paper toward Buddy. “We gotta figure this shit out, man.”
Buddy looked down. It was a grainy picture of him on his porch holding the little black girl’s hand. In the photo, she’s crying, struggling to break away. Buddy’s bathrobe is open, showing his boxer jocks…too small, too tight, showing too much of him. Buddy is staring at her, half shaved, and his eyes don’t look right. He felt his chest tighten again, same as the morning when he first saw her. “Figure what shit out?!”
Tyrell cocked his head, then looked away, as though he was deep in thought. When he turned back to Buddy, his face was blasted with a grimace of hate. “She tole me what you did to her. That’s my girl’s girl. I gotta take care of my blood. Now, there’s a couple a ways we can go.”
Buddy sat bolt upright. “What the fuck! I don’t know what you’re talking about. She, she, came into my house.” Buddy stopped as though he’d run out of oxygen. He looked at Tyrell, bewildered.
“I call her Dummy,” said Tyrell. “She a dummy alright. She had a hard life an I gotta take care of her.”
“I never touched that girl! Jesus, I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation.”
“I got her on videotape, man, tellin’ the whole story. And I got this picture. Man, it’s hard to get away with any shit today. All this ‘I gotcha’ shit started with Rodney King, some shit.”
“Get the girl over here. I want to hear what she said I did.”
“You ain’t givin’ the orders. I’m the fuckin’ boss of this show!”
“You fucking nig—” Buddy said, slamming his hand on the table.
“There you go. N-word almost popped out, huh?” said Tyrell, smiling. Then he leaned forward. “Gimme me twenty dollars.”
“What?”
“Think of this as your first test. You gimme twenty, or I’m gonna put this mothafuckin’ picture all over the Internet. Gonna send it to the hospital your wife works at. All the fuck over the place. Mr. Buddy, child molester. There’ve been little girls kidnapped and raped. You probably read about it in the paper, that one down in Florida. Shit, you know what happens to a child molester. What’s that nice wife of yours gonna say? Now gimme twenty.”
Buddy sleepwalked to the entry table where his wallet sat. His face was drained of color and his skin felt clammy. Thumbing through the few bills in his wallet, he pulled out a twenty and handed it to Tyrell. “I don’t have a lot of money, you bastard,” he whispered. “I’m a fucking caddy.”
“You a what?”
“I’m a caddy. At the golf course.”
“A caddy?”
Buddy nodded slowly.
“A caddy who drives a nice BMW.”
It was humiliating having to explain himself to this prick. Buddy’s eyes stung with angry tears as he sank into a chair opposite Tyrell. “I bought that car before I lost my job. It was stupid. I never even liked it,” he said, his voice faltering.
“Your wife—”
Buddy leapt up, shaking. “You so much as mention her again and I will fucking end you! You hear me, you cocksucker?”
Tyrell stood and reared his head back. He stepped away from the table, ready to move. “Now we killin,’ huh? You’re killin’ me, I’m killin’ you. Wait till Dummy’s momma starts killin’ too. That bitch can do some killin’ for sure.”
Barely able to breathe, Buddy started to speak, but Tyrell raised his hand. “No, we ain’t killin.’ We gonna handle this without killin,’ Buddy.”
“Just please get the hell out. I told you. I don’t have any money.”
Tyrell tapped the picture on the table. “Maybe not, but you got a house, my nigger,” he said, smiling. “You think this shit is over. I’ll be back. Then we’ll talk business.”
On the way out, just before the door slapped shut, Tyrell laughed. “A mothafuckin’ caddy.”
Chapter 5
Over the sound of traffic moving past the open window, tires grated on gravel. A car door slammed. Buddy was slouched on the living room sofa with the TV on and the sound off. He stiffened as Dana came in and walked past, blowing a kiss, apologizing for missing dinner, saying she’s starved. He noticed an extra bounce in her step.
“Wow, you smell like bleach,” he said.
“Infection control. Tell ya about it after I eat.”
“Huh?”
“I said, after I eat.”
All the sounds seemed intensified, ringing in Buddy’s ears. He could hear, acutely, the rustle of Tyrell’s picture, folded in the pocket of his shorts. Dana bustled about the kitchen, banging cupboard doors and pouring herself a glass of wine. But just below the surface of her noise, Buddy heard her sense of purpose, like she was here on Earth on some sort of assignment. It was what he loved about her—and envied, to the point of crushing sadness.
“Let’s get a puppy, Buddy. Just for the hell of it!” she called out. “You wanted one. It could sleep with us,” she said giddily, sounding like a happy kid.
“Christ, you want a puppy?”
“I’m just being…God, is this frittata good…I’m just being silly, that’s all,” she said.
In a dry-run of the horror show he’d been holding at bay, Buddy said, in what he thought was a whisper, “I need to tell you something.” His heart squeezed.
“What’d you say?” Dana asked, walking from the kitchen in her nurse scrubs, a huge wedge of frittata in one hand, a plastic spray bottle in the other.
“I said you smell like bleach.”
Wolfing her food, she said, “No, after that…you need to what?”
“The puppy, is that what you mean?”
“No, something about something, was that it? Christ, I don’t know.”
Buddy leaned forward, staring intently at Dana. He noticed a tiny bloodstain on the sleeve of her green scrubs. She was bobbing her head as she chewed, hearing some inner music. “You’re in some mood,” he said. You had a drink?”
Smiling, Dana waggled her hips. “Yup, just one, maybe two. With Bobbi. I stopped by her place on the way home. She always has a bottle of Jack. God, I love that woman.”
“You should watch out. Bobbi gets you drunk, she’ll take advantage of you,” Buddy said morosely, only half joking.
“She’s my friend,” Dana said, laughing. She pointed the spray bottle at Buddy and yelled, “Bang!”
“What’s that all about?” he asked suddenly annoyed.
She scrunched her face at him. “You’re no fun. Stop being such a downer, OK? I can’t take that.”
Buddy had never heard her use that term before, downer. He bristled and let out a huff. “Well, you haven’t been that much fun yourself, lately. Christ, you don’t even kiss me goodbye anymore,” he said softly, but with force.
“Honey, no offense, but listen to me now. Let’s not get started, OK? I had a good day, and I just want to have some fun for a change.”
“Get started with what exactly, Dana? With me? That I’m a fucking downer, is that it?” Buddy sat back hard on the sofa and slammed his hand on the arm rest.
“Sometimes I could scream,” she said, “All of a sudden we’re here, once again!”
“And I’m always the one who brings us here, right?”
Dana held up the spray bottle, pointing it at him. “Remember that infection-control protocol I got published? Well, a researcher at Health and Human Services saw it, and he’s coming up from DC to talk with me about writing a set of guidelines. That’s what I wanted to tell you, Buddy. I was happy, and I’d had a drink, and I wanted to share my news with you. That’s all. I don’t want to fight. Christ on a bike!” she said, flinging the plastic bottle across the room.
Buddy glared at her. She glared back, her lips drawn into a tight line. Dana walked to where Buddy sat and bent down, bringing her face within inches of his. Looking directly into his eyes she said, “Listen, Buddy. I really think that most everything bad that can happen between us has already happened, and from here on things will get better, OK? I’ve got to think that.” Dana’s voice softened. “It’s important for us both to think that.” She grabbed his hands and pulled him toward her. When she kissed him, Buddy could feel his heart slow. “C’mon,” she said, leading him to the bedroom.
“Congratulations,” he said.
“Huh?”
“On the HHS thing. It’s exciting.”
*****
Climbing the stairs to their room, Buddy thought about their first night in the house. They were making love to the sound of a rainstorm, when a metallic boom of a car crash suddenly shook the windows. They ran out into the night: one moment, handfuls of warm flesh, the next moment, cold rain and that eerie post-crash quiet. At the intersection, an SUV had buried into a bread van. The van’s driver was sprawled on the road moaning, a gleaming white section of his femur bone sticking through his pants. Dana went right to work. Buddy stood there, fighting the urge to vomit. After it was over, they showered together. As Buddy apologized for being such a wimp, Dana turned and kissed him, saying into his mouth, “C’mon, let’s finish.” At that moment he knew he could never be as brave as Dana. But in the final breaths of their lovemaking, Buddy also knew that Dana was unquestionably his, that moment and forever.
Now his legs shook as they walked into the bedroom. Dana was out of her clothes in two quick, balletic movements. She pulled at his shirt, urging him to hurry.
“I need you,” she breathed. “Lie on your back.” Dana tossed the covers aside and took Buddy in her strong able nurse hands, breathing harder now. She stroked him for several moments, hushing him every time he started to speak. Mounting him, Dana moaned softly as he entered her. Her back arched as her buttocks rose and fell. Leaning down, she kissed him with quick fluttering kisses that grazed his lips. “Don’t worry,” Dana whispered. “Please, for God’s sake, don’t worry.” The sound of her voice astonished and soothed him.
“I love you,” Buddy said. “I love—”
“Just fuck me,” she said, “just fuck me slow.”
Her rhythm began to quicken, and Buddy could sense she was close to orgasm. All the signs he’d learned over the years: the flush of her skin, the small whimpers caught in her throat. His hands grasped her hips as she moved, and he held on, held on until she cried out. With a strangled shout, Buddy let himself release.
Afterward, Buddy went into the bathroom first. “Just bring me a washcloth,” Dana said, sleepily. “I want to lie here for a while. Or is it lay?” He stood with his arms braced against the vanity, eyes closed, listening to the water splashing in the sink.
Tyrell, he thought, the name coming unbidden. I’m in a spot, Dana, a real tight spot. Something I don’t fully understand is happening to me and I want you to know that it is not my fault. Buddy moved his lips in silent mime, desperate to say the words out loud.
“Hey,” Dana called, “I met the guy who lives next door.”
Buddy froze. He turned off the water and for a long moment he felt faint. His heart was drumming so hard he could actually see the air throb with each beat. Finally he took a breath. “What, honey?”
“I said I met the guy next door. Funny, huh? After how many years we’ve been living next to him?”
Buddy cleared his throat, trying to calm himself.
“He was getting out of his car same time as me,” she continued. “Seems like a good guy.”
Buddy came out of the bathroom naked.
“What the hell did he say to you, Dana?”
She sat up, puzzled at his tone. “He just said hello. What else would he say?”
Chapter 6
“I’m talking about chutzpah. We lost it somewhere. Look at Ground Zero. For ten years it was a fucking hole,” boomed Izzy Weinberg, bobbing his head in a cloud of cigar smoke. “And don’t the ragheads just love that? We shoulda started construction the next fucking day.” Izzy headed toward the green on the eighth hole, a heavy-footed, locomotive shuffle that said hop aboard or get the fuck out of my way. The rest of the foursome, all men who shot in the low eighties, followed in his wake.
At the ninth hole Izzy pulled out his cellphone, hit the clubhouse number on speed dial and barked, “We’re dying of fucking thirst out here!” In minutes, a dazzling blonde came zipping down the fairway, her golf cart a mobile bar. Pulling up, she smiled at Izzy.
“How ya doin’ doll,” he said, flashing four banana-thick fingers. “Four IBMs, Courtney.” Izzy’s golf partner—Sy Roth, a first-time guest at Woodcrest—looked puzzled, so Izzy explained. “IBMs are Izzy Bloody Marys. You use vodka instead of tomato juice. My girl Courtney here knows just how I like ‘em. Fellas, this beauty went to Duke University’s Fuck You School of Business.”
“Izzy, I think you mean Fuqua,” Sy said, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Anyway, she’s a tough, very smart girl. But the economy tanked. That’s why she’s here for now, serving drinks to you schmucks instead of kicking your asses on Wall Street.”
The men laughed with Courtney, watching her dimples deepen, taking in her body, wondering whether Izzy had gotten her in the sack yet.
“First day on the job I asked Courtney if she’d ever made love to a nice Jewish boy,” Izzy said as he knocked the ash off his cigar. “Never got an answer, so I take that as a yes.”
Courtney colored slightly, bit her lower lip in amusement, and chirped a laugh.
“Courtney,” Izzy said, “you know Barry Blum and Stink Feet—I mean Sammy—Cohen.” Izzy could never resist calling Sammy by the nickname he earned in the locker room where the fumes rising from Sammy’s socks could knock over a bull at twenty paces. Tilting his glass at his playing partner, Izzy said, “this is my guest, Sy Roth, a big shot insurance guy. Maybe Mr. Roth can get you a position, huh, Sy?”
Roth nodded, studied his drink, and said, “Jesus, Izzy, I never saw a transparent Bloody Mary before.”
Izzy raised his glass. “Here’s to Harry Feld. The schmuck made room for the living. That’s what the dead do best.”
Sammy Cohen’s head jerked. “Jesus, Izzy, Harry was good people.”
Courtney busied herself making another round, as Izzy’s head turned like a gun turret. “Sammy, you putz. Harry was a greedy fuck who shoveled his wife’s inheritance into Bernie Madoff’s pockets and ended up with Madoff’s balls in his mouth. I’m supposed to cry over that?” Slapping his hip, Izzy said, “A man takes care of his own money.”
Sammy drained his drink. “So far we’ve lost about twelve members to the Madoff scandal. Mostly older. They lost their shirts and moved on. But Harry was younger. He still had something to prove. He took it personal. Very personal.”
“You know it was his wife who found him in the garage with the car running,” Blum said.
“A fucking shame,” said Roth. “That prick Madoff should rot in Hell.”
Izzy made a fist, showing his horseshoe-shaped diamond pinky ring. “I bought a few racehorses. Just for fun. They run two minutes a month. The rest of the time all they do is eat, shit, and sleep.”
“Sounds like my son,” Roth said, to hoots.
“Moral of this story, take care of your own money,” said Izzy.
Glasses lifted in the midday sun. A toast to money, never enough.
“Next week I leave for Scotland. Two weeks, mostly business, but I’m gonna play the Old Course. Thank God for golf, ‘cause the food in Scotland sucks and they got the homeliest women in the world there.”
Courtney passed another round, looked over to the caddies, Buddy and LT, and shared a private laugh.
“But you always bring your own split-tail, right, Izzy?” said Blum.
Izzy shot him a look and handed Courtney a hundred-dollar bill, whispering in her ear.
Cohen chimed, “Yeah, but he makes her fly coach, don’tcha, Izzy?”
Izzy shook his head, reflecting. “On her fiftieth birthday Elaine asked me how she looks. I tell her fine, with her fancy clothes and jewelry on, but naked, her ass looks like an accordion. She calls me a bastard and starts bawling. So I say, stop crying and get it taken care of like the rest of the girls your age do.”
“You are a bastard,” said Blum, sucking air in a loud whistle. “Christ, how do you drink this stuff?’
“I’m honest to a fault, period. I drink enough to stun a fucking mule, and still run my businesses, all of ‘em.”
Roth sighed. “I’m lost. What’s your wife’s ass have to do with this guy Feld killing himself or your fucking race horses?”
Izzy waved his hand. “This is too deep for you, Roth. Drink up, let’s play golf.”
“Christ, Weinberg, you are hard fuckin’ company,” Roth said, handing his empty glass to Courtney, blowing her a kiss.
*****
LT was one of the black caddies Buddy had befriended. A fifty-year-old self-anointed philosopher, LT was nicknamed for his obsessive use of “lemme tellya” in each of his utterances. As Izzy and the rest of the foursome ate lunch in the clubhouse, Buddy and LT lounged in the shade on the back nine, waiting for them to return to the course. Buddy’s mind drifted back to Tyrell and that picture. He felt like he was falling backward, cartwheeling his arms, kicking against the air with his legs, helpless. It was a deranging sensation. Buddy tried to focus on what LT was saying, just to feel grounded in something. LT was rambling on about his favorite subject: pussy. “Lemme tellya, Buddy. That mothafucka Weinberg is a pussy hound. All young cooze, too. Fat an ugly as he is, shit. See, Buddy, it’s all about money and pussy. Lemme tellya, an ugly mothafucka like Weinberg gets more pussy than me an you can dream of. An I am a muh-tha-fuckin’ booty-call master. Them bitches crawl all over me. Lemme tellya, Buddy, everything boils down ta money an pussy. That’s the long an short a that shit. An there ain’t more trouble on this earth than white pussy, lemme tellya. See, I’m preferential to independent black bitches with bubble butts an attitude to match. Ask Tiger Woods about white pussy. He married the whitest bitch in the world, gave her all the shit she wants, man goes an gets a little pussy on the side, an what’s that bitch do? Attacks him with a golf club. Never satisfied. I coulda tole Tiger. White pussy ain’t nothin’ but trouble.”